"The Painting"
	Having recently graduated from high school and attending The Tampa Academy of Fine Arts, I was paying for private and class lessons by driving our family's produce truck and delivering produce. I was fortunate that my paintings were starting to sell very well around Tampa. My instructor told me about a large art exhibition and juried competition that was taking place at the DeBary Mansion in Sanford for The Florida Federation of Art. He urged me to enter the contest. The theme was anything depicting Florida. I mailed in my application and entry fee and was accepted. The event was scheduled to take place a month later. I knew I didn't want to paint a typical Florida scene of palm trees, sunset, or birds. I wanted to present something completely different. I remembered as a boy on Ellicott Street hearing Mrs. Griffins, the lady who lived across the street, talk about growing up in Osprey, Florida, near Sarasota. She said the Barefoot Mailman would pass through Osprey and stop at their little homestead farm. Sometimes he'd stay and enjoy a meal with them and then be on his way. She was just a baby, or maybe wasn't even born yet, but remembered hearing her parents tell the stories about the Barefoot Mailman. So that's what I decided to paint. I had always been under the impression that there was only one Barefoot Mailman. In reality, during the seven years between 1885 and 1892 there were probably ten. Before there were roads and railroads penetrating the thick jungles in the lower part of the state, leading to Miami, the mail was carried along the beaches by the barefoot mailmen. They'd walk along the shore where the sand was wet and firm, barefooted with their pants legs rolled up, from Sarasota around to Miami on the west coast and West Palm Beach to Miami on the east. Before the U.S. Postal Department realized that hiring adventurous young men who were willing to earn a few extra bucks delivering the mail in this manner, it took nearly forever for the mail to go to and from Miami on a convoluted journey. It went 3,000 miles and took six weeks for the mail to travel from West Palm Beach to Miami. It would leave West Palm Beach and go by ship to St. Augustine, then to Jacksonville, Florida then to New York City, to Havana, Cuba and from Havana to Miami. All by ship, picking up and delivering mail along the way. The same results were accomplished by the barefoot mailmen in five days. It was amazing how much ground they could cover in such a short time. It took two days to get to Miami, walking the beach. They stayed one day to rest and then two days to get back, taking and bringing back mail. There were occasional misfortunes that caused delays. For example, someone once stole the boat that was always left tied for their use in crossing an inlet. The mailman on route swam the inlet and was eaten by an alligator. A barefoot mailmen story my neighbor used to tell was about one of the young men that her family had a particular fondness for. She said he was very tall and because he covered so much ground so fast that he made a chair that he strapped to his back so he could also carry passengers and earn extra money. It even had an umbrella over the top. When the postal officials found out about it they came down and said that it was against the rules and had to stop. So he did...until they left. He resumed carrying passengers to Miami and it went very well. The Post Office got wind of it and paid him another visit. In disgust, he flew mad and quit. He got a job cutting railroad timbers down in Arcadia. They said this man had a five-foot long alligator that was his pet. He liked to sit on his front porch in his rocking chair with his big ole pet alligator lying across his lap. Close to 50 years after my neighbor told me that story I heard a song on an album. It was called "Acrefoot Johnson" and it was about that same Barefoot Mailman. It verified everything she had told me and about him traveling through Osprey. Hollywood also made a movie called "The Barefoot Mailman" in 1951. It starred Bob Cummings and Terry Moore. The movie gave the impression there was only one barefoot mailman, as well. A few days before the day of the competition in Sanford I started getting everything together to do the painting for my entry. The DeBary Mansion was about a half-day's drive, so being somewhat of a procrastinator sometimes, it wasn't unlike me to wait until the day before the contest to paint the painting. The painting was dark and moody. It depicted the Barefoot Mailman, at night, alone, making his way down the beach with no one around for 100 miles in any direction. The sky was churning blue black and the palm trees were bent under the force of the wind, their fronds whipping wildly. The mailman was leaning into the wind and was holding onto his mail pouch with his shirttail tearing about behind him. There were palm fronds blowing across the beach at eye level. I loved the way the painting had turned out. As usual, I painted it on Masonite. I had previously prepared the piece of 1/8" thick Masonite, 24"X30" vertical, and bought a very nice appropriate frame. I finished the painting that night knowing that early the next morning I would insert it into the frame and away I'd go to Sanford, making it in time for the deadline. The only problem was: would the painting be dry? That night before I went to bed I propped it up over the heater so it would be dry the next morning. When I woke up, it was dry. But it was warped. It was bowed. The two outside edges were closest to you and the center, from top to bottom, was concave. I turned the painting around, facing away from me, and bent it in the opposite direction of the curve, to straighten it out. There was a loud snap and the painting broke half in two right in my hands. I, I, I didn't know what to do. I just stood there with two pieces of the painting, one in each hand. The break was from top to bottom. So I took the larger piece and broke it again, also from top to bottom, then one of those pieces, making another break going downward at an angle, like an upside down Y. I pieced the painting together like a puzzle, taping it on the backside. Then I put it into the frame, with a backing behind it. I painted the cracks on the front of the painting, very lightly, with a silvery-cream color, giving them the appearance of violent lightning. This effect matched the rain and the storm perfectly. Maybe it wasn't a loss after all. I went outside and found some old, weathered fence boards and nailed them together using rusty nails, making a grey, gnarly panel that looked as old as the story of the Barefoot Mailman, itself. I mounted the painting to the center of this panel of boards leaving about five inches showing all the way around. Tearing a piece of brown paper bag about the size of the palm of your hand I wrote on it with in brown ink, using Spenserian Script: "One of the most colorful aspects of Florida History is the Barefoot Mailman who trod the beaches of Florida from Osprey and West Palm Beach to Miami delivering the mail. During the late 1800's, he walked the shorelines barefoot through perilous conditions, mosquitos, alligators, and storms, saving the United States Postal Service an incomparable amount of time and expense." Or something like that. It's been way too long for me to remember exactly. I took the assembled painting to The Tampa Academy of Fine Arts to ask if it was worth my while to drive it to Sanford. Mr. Porth, my mentor, said, "I really like this, but I'm not sure if they'll accept it in the show. It's basically a broken painting." I did drive the painting to the DeBary Mansion and made it just in time. To my astonishment, The Barefoot Mailman won first prize. Lash Out Loud